The genetic legacy of African Americans from Catoctin Furnace
Éadaoin Harney, Steven J. Micheletti, Karin S. Bruwelheide, William A. Freyman, Katarzyna Bryc, Ali Akbari, Ethan M. Jewett, Elizabeth Comer, Henry Louis Gates, Linda M. Heywood, John K. Thornton, Roslyn Curry, Samantha Ancona Esselmann, Kathryn G. Barca, Jakob Sedig, Kendra Sirak, Íñigo Olalde, Nicole Adamski, Rebecca Bernardos, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Matthew Ferry, Lijun Qiu, Kristin Stewardson, J. Noah Workman, Fatma Zalzala, Shop Mallick, Adam Micco, Matthew Mah, Zhao Zhang, Nadin Rohland, Joanna L. Mountain, Douglas W. Owsley, David Reich, Stella Aslibekyan, Adam Auton, Elizabeth Babalola, Robert K. Bell, Jessica Bielenberg, Emily Bullis, Daniella Coker, Gabriel Cuéllar-Partida, Devika Dhamija, Sayantan Das, Sarah L. Elson, Teresa Filshtein, Kipper Fletez‐Brant, Pierre Fontanillas, Karl Heilbron, Barry Hicks, David A. Hinds, Yunxuan Jiang, Katelyn Kukar, Keng‐Han Lin, Maya Lowe, Jey C. McCreight, Matthew H. McIntyre, Meghan E. Moreno, Priyanka Nandakumar, Elizabeth S. Noblin, Jared O’Connell, Aaron A. Petrakovitz, G. David Poznik, Morgan Schumacher, Anjali J. Shastri, Janie F. Shelton, Jingchunzi Shi, Suyash Shringarpure, Vinh Tran, Joyce Y. Tung, Xin Wang, Wei Wang, Catherine H. Weldon, Peter Wilton, Alejandro Hernandez, Corinna D. Wong, Christophe Toukam Tchakouté, Alison Fitch, Alexandra Reynoso, Julie M. Granka, Qiaojuan Jane Su, Alan Kwong, Nicholas Eriksson, Dominique T. Nguyen, Bianca A. Llamas, Susana A. Tat
Abstract
Few African Americans have been able to trace family lineages back to ancestors who died before the 1870 United States Census, the first in which all Black people were listed by name. We analyzed 27 individuals from Maryland's Catoctin Furnace African American Cemetery (1774-1850), identifying 41,799 genetic relatives among consenting research participants in 23andMe, Inc.'s genetic database. One of the highest concentrations of close relatives is in Maryland, suggesting that descendants of the Catoctin individuals remain in the area. We find that many of the Catoctin individuals derived African ancestry from the Wolof or Kongo groups and European ancestry from Great Britain and Ireland. This study demonstrates the power of joint analysis of historical DNA and large datasets generated through direct-to-consumer ancestry testing.